


Your Reality

by jujus_writing_corner



Series: Whumptober 2020 [21]
Category: Real Person Fiction, Youtube RPF
Genre: Chronic Pain, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Piano, Scars, Who Killed Markiplier?, Whumptober 2020, references to injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-21
Updated: 2020-10-21
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:21:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27140998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jujus_writing_corner/pseuds/jujus_writing_corner
Summary: Dark is having a bad night. What begins to bring him out of it is something he didn't expect.Whumptober Day 21: I Don’t Feel So WellPrompt: Chronic Pain
Relationships: Darkiplier/Yandereplier
Series: Whumptober 2020 [21]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1947961
Comments: 2
Kudos: 14
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	Your Reality

**Author's Note:**

> I'm such a sucker for Dark/Yan. After working on Unravel for so long, this was nice to write ;w;
> 
> Enjoy!

Dark is tired.

Not just tired; he’s been tired all day. His head is a storm cloud, his aura has been cracking like thunder and lightning all day long. Night has fallen, but his body still stands despite himself. He has tried to sleep, but it would not come. He can’t normally hear the souls trapped inside him, but the barrier is thin tonight. They scream at him as fiercely as they always have, as fiercely as they did when he was a new creation, rising from the floor of the manor like a monster from a swamp. There’s a bullethole in his chest that throbs with pain, there’s a hundred kinks in his spine that seize his whole back into a knot.

Dark is more than tired.

But it’s nothing new.

Wilford would understand, if he were lucid today. But he isn’t, he so rarely is these days. Dark knows they don’t age, but he can’t help but wonder if their bodies have remembered to stop getting older. If Wilford’s mind will ever stop fading and forgetting, if Dark’s body will stop creaking and rusting. Every hard night feels harder, every burst of pain hurts evermore.

Instead of returning to bed, which he knows will not work, he goes to his piano room. His aura snaps and cracks the whole while, terrible and loud. He has no more energy left to suppress it like he’s been doing all day. As he opens the door to his piano room, he turns his head to look around the room and his neck cracks as loudly as his aura. Pain rockets up his jaw, but he merely grimaces and continues forward.

As he approaches the piano, he catches sight of himself in the full-length grand mirror hanging on the wall. The thing is vintage; older even than Dark is, and every time Dark sees it he wonders why he keeps it. He certainly doesn’t like the look of himself now, hair a mess, face drawn with exhaustion, pale and gaunt like the corpse that he is. His silk pajama shirt is unbuttoned, revealing the gnarled, scarred-over dent in his chest, because even the soft fabric feels too constricting tonight. The mirror he’s looking into isn’t from the manor, but maybe what happened at the manor is why he can’t bring himself to be rid of it. Either way, he keeps walking.

He reaches the bench of his grand piano, pulls up the fallboard to expose the keys. The piano is huge, sleek, deep black and shining like ink in the moonlight peeking through the window. He sits down at the bench, runs a hand over the keys, not pressing down, just feeling. The music desk is already open on a book of symphonies, and Dark flips through the pages to find something suitable. This is his ritual, this is what brings him peace on nights like this, where the pain and the past threaten to devour him. His aura rumbles and the voices inside him do not go quiet as Dark searches for the piece he’s looking for.

Finally, he reaches Franz Schubert’s “Erlkönig,” arranged by Franz Liszt. It’s just the piece for a night like this, something angry and violent and sad to ring louder than his aura, louder than the voices, louder than his own pain.

Dark breathes in, though he hasn’t needed to breathe in a long time. He rolls his neck, lets it snap and pop. His aura simmers in anticipation, rumbling low like thunder. The voices are as loud as ever, but Dark does not mind their volume now. His fingers on the keys will meet it.

He begins to play.

It is loud, it is quick. One hand hovers, pressing on the same keys repeatedly, fast and intense. The other hand plays a repetitive chord, ringing and gloomy but just as frenetic. The music is more excited and energetic than Dark ever was today, but as his fingers fly on the keys, as the melancholy and suspenseful melody takes shape, the music begins to feed some of that life to Dark. The ringing and bellowing of his aura quiets beneath the notes, the voices in his mind are drowned out. Dark’s whole body moves with it, head nodding, hands forceful as they play yet never lingering a moment too long. It’s exhilarating, angry and sad all at once, even the lighter parts of the melody add up to the violent crescendo –

Dark’s hand slips, the next chord goes sour.

That wrong note is somehow the loudest sound Dark has heard tonight. It pierces right through the music, cuts through all the pumping energy and screeches the song to a halt. Dark’s aura and the voices within him rear up to fill the volume, as though jeering at him for the missed note. Dark’s blood boils, he alights with fire.

He has no control when he roars like an animal, standing from the piano and slamming the keys in a burst of rage. His aura overturns the piano bench and the _thud_ it makes echoes throughout the room. Dark whirls and finds himself facing the grand mirror. He hardly recognizes himself – not that he ever did, not since that night, not since the source of his agony. He storms to the mirror, screams at his own reflection, at the hole in his chest. His aura rings, so high-pitched it hurts his own ears, and the mirror cracks wide as though wounded.

Dark stands before the mirror, shaking as the rage leeches out of him, leaving him spent. Thank god there’s an armchair not far from the mirror, intended for days when Dark feels like playing for someone else. Dark collapses into the chair, face in his hands, trying to regain control. His image is unclear, either blurry or over-sharpened, split apart and fractured like the mirror as his aura screeches. The voices within him are screaming like Dark just did. Dark trembles as the exertion of playing and its crushing failure catch up to him. He might just pass out here before he falls asleep. His body thrums with pain. His bullet wound pulses with agony like a heartbeat.

Through the splintering of his aura, he hears the door to the piano room creak open. He looks up, through his fingers, and sees Yandereplier there, looking on in a rumpled oversized t-shirt, sleep shorts, and messy hair. He shrinks back, not afraid of Dark, but afraid that he’s been caught. Dark looks away, hunches over again, face in his hands again. It does not matter to him if Yandere sees; he’s too exhausted to protest. And maybe a part of him doesn’t actually mind Yandere’s presence. Yandere doesn’t know everything going through Dark’s mind, but not even Wilford has ever cared for Dark so deeply. It’s not an indictment of Wilford to say so, rather, it’s a mark of Yandere’s powerful love for Dark.

Dark hears Yandere step into the room. He wonders how much Yandere’s seen of his night. Yandere doesn’t speak, not even when he approaches Dark, not even when he cups Dark’s head in his hands, holds it against his chest. Dark moves his own hands from his face to wrap around Yandere’s waist, and Yandere begins to stroke Dark’s hair. The buzzing screech of Dark’s aura doesn’t bother Yandere, nor does the splitting and cracking of his image. It’s though Dark is not a monster at all, but something human, something that can be loved, something that can receive that love.

After a while, Dark lets his tight grip on Yandere loosen. Yandere can leave if he wants; Dark will not keep him here all night. Yandere steps away, but he doesn’t leave. Dark watches him walk to the overturned piano bench, and with a huff of effort, push it back upright. He looks back at Dark, as though he expects Dark to stop him. Dark does not care to send Yandere away; he’s the one who began teaching Yandere how to play in the first place. When Dark does nothing, Yandere sits at the bench. He sets the book on the music desk aside; likely so it doesn’t distract him from the song he has in mind. Yandere takes a small breath, something he truly needs, unlike Dark.

Then he begins to play.

The song Yandere chooses isn’t one Dark recognizes; Yandere must have learned it on his own. It’s bright, cheerful, but slow and gentle. Yandere plays lightly, without Dark’s intensity and quick motion. Dark is a little surprised when Yandere starts to sing.

“Every day, I imagine a future where I can be with you,” he sings, and one hand flits over the keys, creating a twinkling melody. “In my hand, is a pen that will write a poem of me and you…”

This song isn’t nearly as technically or emotionally complex as “Erlkönig,” but it’s charming, somehow. The bright tones and high-pitched, happy keys should be irritating to Dark right now, should be driving him mad in the state he’s in. But it isn’t. The simplicity is soothing, sweet. His own playing fought against his eternal pain with louder, deeper chaos, but Yandere’s choice of song is like raindrops pelting a fire. Dark’s pain is not any less, but it feels further away. The melody changes, a little more serious but no less bright.

“The ink flows down into a dark puddle,” Yandere sings, “Just move your hand – write the way into his heart!”

Dark finds himself leaving the armchair to walk to the piano bench and sit alongside Yandere. His aura is quiet, focused on Yandere’s music. The voices haven’t silenced, but they’re easier to ignore. Dark is still in pain, but he feels soothed. Yandere definitely notices him walk up and sit beside him, but he continues to play.

“But in this world of infinite choices, what will it take just to find that special day?”

Yandere takes a moment to give Dark a shy but happy smile. To Dark’s own surprise, he manages a soft smile back.

“What will it take just to find…” Yandere stops his fingers, uses the pause in the music to scoot a little closer to Dark. “…That special day?” 

Yandere continues to play the song, Dark begins to realize that it isn’t wholly happy after all. The tune is cheerful, but the lyrics Yandere sings suggest a quiet sadness. The song becomes bittersweet. Dark realizes he was wrong before; “Erlkönig” is not the right song for a night like this, when Dark’s pain gets the better of him. This one is. This soft, bright, bittersweet little song is. Dark would never have thought to play something so simplistic, but he’s glad Yandere chose it.

Dark thinks he’ll be able to return to bed when the song is over and actually sleep. He’ll ask Yandere to join him, and Yandere will likely accept, given how much he enjoys sleeping alongside Dark. It’s already too late for a full night’s sleep, but even a few hours is better than what Dark usually gets on nights like these.

The song plays out, and Dark smiles again, leaning against Yandere ever-so-slightly, just to feel his warmth.

Dark is tired, but in a better way than before.

**Author's Note:**

> For those interested, here's about what I imagined Dark looked like as he was playing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_BmRekeJ8A
> 
> I honestly really love "Erlkönig" and highly recommend giving it a listen! I'm more familiar with the arrangement that has a vocal accompaniment, but I really enjoyed this solo piano arrangement, so I might start listening to that instead now XD
> 
> And for those who don't know, Yandere was playing "Your Reality" from Doki Doki Literature Club! Here it is if you want to listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAL4WMpBNs0
> 
> If you enjoyed this, please leave a comment! They absolutely make my day :'3


End file.
